


The Hajime Problem

by airshipcity



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2, Super Dangan Ronpa 2.5
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Hinata Hajime & Kamukura Izuru Share a Body Simultaneously, Introspection, M/M, Post-Canon, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 21:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17567858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airshipcity/pseuds/airshipcity
Summary: Nagito reflects on his conflicting feelings about Hajime and Izuru, and the two (three) of them talk things out over ice cream.





	The Hajime Problem

The thing is, Nagito doesn’t know how to feel anymore. 

It’s a nice day out. It really is; the world may have gone under, but for what amounts to a post-apocalyptic world in slow recovery, the summer weather is as blistering hot as always, and Nagito doesn’t notice that the ice cream has melted onto his prosthetic hand until Hajime points it out. 

“Oh,” he says, a half-empty smile curling up onto his face. “How clumsy of me.” 

Hajime must’ve noticed the somewhat hollow tone to his words, because he looks like he wants to say something else, but he just shrugs. Nagito can’t blame him. He was already nothing before – now that Hajime is also Izuru, Nagito is truly less than an ant in comparison. 

Izuru Kamukura. When they first attended Hope’s Peak together, Hajime was nothing, too. No, he was worse than nothing – he was a nobody who didn’t even know his place. Where Nagito was cursed with a talent that did nothing but spiral the world around him into chaos, it was at least an exploitable talent that he could use to elevate his classmates, the true seeds of hope that were destined to become the future. The reserve course, on the other hand, consisted of people with no such talent and such a lack of respect for their superiors that they were willing to pay their way into the school, just in hopes of usurping a class position they had no right to. Hajime had been one of them. 

Less than even Nagito. True nothing. 

Until, one day, he became an everything. 

He’d known about the rumors, of course. The school experimenting with talents in order to distill them, in search of true talent, true hope, someone who could lead the world into the brightest possible future. After all, he’d tried to turn down his own place at Hope’s Peak, but they’d insisted that they truly wanted to research his luck and that his receiving a letter was, truly, no coincidence. Rather, a fated lottery draw, perhaps subtly manipulated by his luck in order to put him where he belonged; right below those he admired so deeply. 

Izuru Kamukura was the culmination of that research. True talent. The Ultimate Ultimate. The Ultimate Hope and everything else, crammed into someone who had done absolutely nothing in order to deserve it. 

The next time Hajime opens his mouth, it’s Izuru speaking. Nagito has learned to tell the difference by now; it’s been months since he woke up from the Neo World Program, and while he’s certain there must be better use for The Ultimate Ultimate elsewhere, Izuru has stayed on in order to help get the new Hope’s Peak Academy back on its feet, and he asked Nagito to stay and do the same. Not that he had anywhere else to go, after everything. 

“You’re still upset,” Izuru says. It’s a statement, rather than a question. He looks at Nagito with a piercing gaze that looks like it’s trying to be softer than it is. This time, Nagito does smile, lifting his ice cream cone to lick the melted part away before it gets into the finger joints. 

“Who am I upset with?” he asks, tilting his head as he gives his lips a final lick. Izuru closes his eyes after a moment, frowning as he ponders the question. 

“I… think both of us. Hajime and Izuru.” 

“Why?” Nagito presses. He has admittedly been avoiding this conversation for a while, but it’s just the two – three? – of them out here today, enjoying their ice creams in the sun, reclining on a bench just outside the school grounds. If today is the day they want to push the topic, Nagito isn’t going to fight it. 

“You do not think we deserve our talent,” Izuru begins, looking at his own ice cream cone, lifting it to his mouth and sucking on it for a moment. Nagito doesn’t stare. “You feel it is artificial. A lie.” 

“But you do have all the talents,” Nagito says, smiling again. “Whether I like it or not.” 

“You think Hajime doesn’t deserve the talents,” Izuru corrects, and Hajime looks away. “And you hate Izuru for what he used the talents for.” 

Nagito leans back against the table part of the bench, licking his ice cream cone quietly. “You’re right, of course. I do.” 

“So you are still upset.” This time, it’s Hajime speaking, and Nagito glances at him for a moment. Something in his chest stings. 

“You know, Hajime, it’s possible to be upset and not upset at the same time?” 

“What do you mean?” Hajime frowns, shifting a little. “You’re being unusually cryptic today, Nagito.” 

“And you’re asking a lot of questions about something you normally don’t like to acknowledge, so I really don’t think you have any right to act like I’m being weird.” 

Hajime’s lips press together, and he returns to his ice cream for a bit. “Sorry. But… I do want to hear what you mean by being upset and not upset. If you don’t mind explaining.” 

“If you really want to listen to somebody like me--” 

Hajime interrupts. “I do.” Nagito’s lips remain parted for a moment as their eyes meet again, and it takes a second for him to compose himself enough to continue talking. 

“Alright. I guess… What I mean is, part of me is still upset. But the Hajime I knew of before the Tragedy, the Izuru Kamukura I met after the Tragedy began, the Hajime I met in the Neo World Program, and the Izuru Kamukura I know now? They’re supposed to all be one person.” Nagito swallows, staring at the ice cream cone (pistachio, half eaten, still melting). “I didn’t like the first Hajime. He was trying to be more than he was supposed to be. Scum aspiring to be a diamond. He wanted to _become_ an Ultimate, after all – which, according to everything else in my life, was reprehensible. Talents are bestowed by fate. Those without talents need to know their place as… below the chosen ones. Bees milling about, doing the other work. I was happy to be one of those worker bees, even if I technically had a talent, you know?” 

Hajime nods, and Nagito shifts a little where he sits, taking a minute to eat. Hajime and Izuru are unusually patient as he draws his breath. 

“The first Izuru, on the other hand… I suppose, in a way, he was everything and nothing in my eyes at the same time. Talents are everything, of course. Who am I to judge a god among men? The culmination of everything Hope’s Peak and the Ultimate system stands for? At the same time, knowing that those talents didn’t belong to you… Liar. Fraud. Traitor. All that talent, bestowed upon someone who hadn’t been granted a single talent by fate in the first place. Meddling with destiny out of greed and jealousy. And on top of that, using those precious talents for despair rather than hope?” 

Nagito doesn’t realize he’s laughing under his breath until he notices Hajime looking slightly concerned. He clamps his jaw shut for a second, smiling apologetically. 

“I guess you could say that was the tipping point. Surely, if Izuru Kamukura was the Ultimate Ultimate, being the Ultimate Hope, the only possible way I could rationalize that was that the despair must have been necessary. Induced in order to push hope to its limits, so that when the Ultimate Despair was overcome, all the remaining Ultimates would shine that much brighter for it. That had to be it. So, however disgusted I may have been with how those talents were acquired, I admired and despised Izuru Kamukura at the same time. The despair had to be absolutely necessary for hope, and I would simultaneously support that for the sake of everyone else, while wanting equally much to defeat you, despite not being worthy of such a feat.” 

“Nagito,” Izuru mutters. 

“The Hajime I met in the killing game had every reason to think he was an Ultimate, of course,” Nagito continues, a bitter smile on his face. “It wasn’t that he lied to me – to us – as much as that he was lying to himself, in a way. He couldn’t remember having a talent, but he assumed he had one. After all, we were all classmates at Hope’s Peak, and everyone else was an Ultimate. Logically, he had to be one. That was something I assumed long before he said anything about possibly having a talent at all. My fault for not being able to tell. Even so, discovering that someone I admired so much, someone I had been looking up to as a shining example of how fine Ultimates were? That was a slap in the face.” Nagito slowly licks his ice cream to a flat top, before nibbling on the waffle cone. He throws Hajime a quick look. “Your ice cream is the one that’s melting now, Hajime.” 

“O-oh,” Hajime says, snapping back to reality with a mildly embarrassed look on his face. “Sorry. Go on.” 

“The Hajime you are now – Hajime and Izuru in one – is supposed to be all of those people in one. Everything. Nothing. A nobody who became a somebody. A somebody who turned out to be a nobody. I’m upset with all of those versions of you, in a way, but I’m not sure how to be upset at this you. This person who is more talented than anyone, this Ultimate who is helping create that beautiful future, this shining hope that defeated its own despair and saved the world from itself. The reason I believed despair was necessary to nurture hope, and the reason I’m still here, at the end of the world, because no one else could have pulled me back from the depth of the despair I sunk into.” He closes his eyes, trying to ignore the small bulge in his throat. “Both Hajime and Izuru did that, despite everything I did. Despite the nothing I am. And even though I’m upset, I’m so grateful.” 

Nagito keeps his eyes closed, even though he can feel Hajime’s hand on his own. It’s cold, and a little sticky from ice cream and dried saliva. “Why?” Izuru asks, his voice softer than Nagito has ever heard from him. 

“You chose to save me. You came back for me when I lost my way in the program. You’ve let me stay by your side after everything, when you had every reason to be as upset with me as I was with you. I fought against you, and I rejected you, and I dismissed you. And you’re still buying me ice cream.” His voice hitches a little, but he smiles nonetheless. “How can I be upset at someone who keeps proving me wrong about the world, again and again?” 

The cold fingers squeeze his thin wrist gently, and Nagito opens his eyes to see that Hajime has shifted closer to him, looking like he has the same strange feeling in the pit of his stomach as Nagito has had for most of the conversation. “Thank you for explaining,” Izuru says, blunt and sincere as always. 

“Honestly, I’ve been trying to explain it to myself for months,” Nagito admits, laughing nervously. “I’m still not even sure if it came out right. I just thought I had to try, since you asked.” 

“I think I understand,” Hajime says. He puts his ice cream cone on the table and grabs Nagito’s hands with both hands, and Nagito lets his arm sink to the bench, loose fingers letting his own ice cream slide out and onto the grass as Hajime’s palms warm his hand and cheeks much more effectively than the sun could ever dream of. “I’m… I’m glad you’re here, Nagito. And I’m really glad you’re not mad at me.” 

“I couldn’t be,” Nagito murmurs under his breath, looking at Hajime’s hands around his own in awe. “I might have been upset, but even after I found out the truth in the killing game, I couldn’t hate you. I was just… hurt. And angry. But it wasn’t enough to make me fall out of love, which upset me more than anything else.” 

Hajime’s breath hitches a little, and when Nagito looks up at him, there’s an adorable tinge to his face that Nagito wants to commit to memory for the rest of his little life. 

“And now?” he asks quietly. 

“Now?” Nagito asks, smiling at him. Hajime’s cheeks darken another shade. 

“Do you still feel that way?” 

“Hajime, Izuru,” Nagito says, care put into each word, “no force in the world could stop me from loving you.”


End file.
